


Myth

by Tobi83



Category: Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-03
Updated: 2013-09-03
Packaged: 2017-12-25 12:56:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/953359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tobi83/pseuds/Tobi83
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabrielle tries out a new story on Xena.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Myth

**Author's Note:**

> The quote in Italics was taken from the Mary Innes translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, the rest of the italic translation is my own retelling (or rather Gabrielle's) of the story of Pyramus and Thisbe
> 
> No profit has been made in the production of this work and no copyright was intended.
> 
> No lions choked on bloody veils during the making of this work.

_Hear me sing o muses, of a story told in the part of Greece where I am from, about two famous lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe. A young couple who had known each other since they were children, who desired to marry, but were forbidden by their parents._

_However as lovers are wont to do, they continued their love in secret. By way of a chink in the daub of the dividing wall of their parents propertied, they could hear each others whispers of love and longing. Through this wall, they whispered their love to each other every day, unbeknownst to their families…_

“They talked through a wall?” Xena interrupted incredulously “A stone wall?”

“Yes, a stone wall. Xena you promised you wouldn’t interrupt, and anyway, it’s through a gap.”

“Sorry” muttered the warrior not in the slightest chastised.

“Who else am I going to try this story out on? Argo is hardly a suitable candidate, I can never tell whether she likes them or not and she’s no good at giving feedback, plays it all very close to the chest that lady. Besides, you said you wanted to hear it.”

“I do, it’s just…”

“Through a stone wall?” asked the bard in an amused tone, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes.”

“Okay, I’ll think about that bit. Can I go on now?”

The brunette sitting across from her nodded “Of course”

The bard paused.

“What?” asked Xena.

“Well, now I’m thinking about the feasibility of the wall” the bard sighed “where was I?”

“Unbeknownst to their families…” prompted the warrior, absentmindedly poking a stick at the fire.

“Thank you.”

_Then, one day, they decided that they would meet. They agreed to sneak away form their homes and see each other under cover of darkness. They set the time and the place and prepared for their joyful reunion._

“You’re making it too clinical Gabrielle, could you not put in some of those simile things you like, to make it more…exciting?”

This time both blond eyebrows shot up “you want it to be more exciting?”

The brunette nodded “Sure, I used to love getting sucked into your stories, and it seems to me that it’s going to need more if you are to reel your audience in as you used to do.”

“…You realise it’s meant to be a tragedy? I’m not sure that added excitement is especially appropriate. There’s supposed to be pathos and a cathartic experience for the audience. It’s not meant to be a swash buckling adventure a la Xena!”

“I realise that, but if you’re going for pathos, then you need to include your listeners and make them as convinced about your tragic hero and heroines love as you are. Otherwise they won’t care about the tragic ending…” she paused seeing Gabrielle’s sceptical glance.

“Fine” she amended “Maybe not excitement, but a little more passion and romance wouldn’t go amiss.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I’ve read your scrolls” replied Xena succinctly.

“All of them?”

“Yep. Even the ones you won’t read to people. I like the fact that you’re writing about someone other than me for a change by the way.” She added with a somewhat rakish grin and a quirk of one dark brow, her pale eyes dancing in the firelight.

“You’ve read all of them?” muttered Gabrielle with a shy smile.

The brunette just nodded, pleased to have surprised the bard.

“I never knew. Thank you Xena”

“Well, now you do. Are you going to continue? I want to know what you’re going to do to them…other than it’s going to be dire.”

“Okay…I’ll think abut that description… as well as the wall” she muttered making a note in the margin of the partially unfurled scroll on her knee, her quill scratching over the rough parchment with quick sure movements, then continued reading.

_When night fell, Thisbe stole away from her house, her face hidden behind a veil, carefully avoiding the guards, and stealthily leaving the city towards Nimus’ tomb, where they had agreed to meet beneath the Mulberry tree that was laden with snowy white fruits._

_She waited, nestled beneath the safety of the tree, for Pyramus to arrive. Before long she heard the pad of footsteps approaching, and thinking it to be her love she stood. Only to find, to her surprise that it was not him, but a lioness, her jaws tainted with fresh blood from a kill. The lioness was coming to slake her thirst at the nearby spring._

_Thisbe watched her approach in horror, before turning on her heel and fleeing towards the safety of a nearby cave. As she ran, her veil fell from her hands to the ground and was forgotten._

“There you go, excitement” Xena pointed out “and peril.”

“Xena” groaned Gabrielle “Would you…just wait, wait until I’ve finished. Unless you think something needs more work, the experience won’t work unless you let yourself be involved.”

The warrior looked askance at her “Fine” she sighed “and I am involved” she grumped.

Gabrielle’s gaze softened “I know Xena, I know. Just wait, please?” Gabrielle glanced back at the scroll “So I’m at the part where she’s dropped her veil and fled?”

“Yep.”

“Okay.”

_The lioness, having drunk her fill, found the veil and pounced upon it, instantly shredding it to tatters and leaving blood upon the thin material._

_After a time, Pyramus arrived at the tomb to meet Thisbe. He saw the paw prints and the shredded, bloody, veil and feared the worst. That his lovely Thisbe as been attacked by a large beast and been killed._

_He instantly blamed himself, if only he hadn’t insisted that she be the one to arrive first, he realises that he unknowingly sent her into danger with his insistence. Then, taking up the veil he walked over to the Mulberry tree and sat beneath its comforting branches and wept piteously for his lost love. Then, taking the sharp dagger from its protective scabbard at his hip, he stabbed himself in the side. His rich, dark blood instantly seeping from his body and down into the roots of the trees, changing the once pale berries into ones of a deep dark purple hue._

_Meanwhile, Thisbe emerged from her hiding place within the cave and came to see if the lioness has gone yet, and whether or not Pyramus had now arrived. She wandered along to where she thought they were to meet, only to find that she doesn’t recognise the place she’s reached for in place of the white fruited tree there now stands one of purple, confused she continued to look around hoping to find Pyramus waiting for her._

_Finally she spied Pyramus and rushed over to his prone form beneath the tree. He opened his eyes to gaze upon his beautiful Thisbe once more, and then died. His final breath leaving his body in a gentle sigh._

_Thisbe, through her tears spied her bloody veil, clutched within Pyramus’ hand and realised what must have happened, that her love had killed himself in mourning for a love he thought he had lost forever._

_“Oh my love. Only death could have separated you from me, but not even death will part us” **[1]** Cried Thisbe, grief stricken. She then prayed to the gods that their parents would not begrudge them their final wish to lie together._

_Then, taking the same dagger Pyramus had used still covered in his blood, she too stabbed herself and died, lying upon her loves chest._

_Her desperate pleas and prayers touched both the gods and their parents. The gods made the Mulberry tree forever more bear deep purple berries in memory of the two unfortunate young lovers, and their parents took the ashes from their children’s funeral pyres and placed them within the same urn, so that they would lie together for all eternity._

Gabrielle laid the scroll down upon her lap “So…what do you think? It’s not the final piece you understand, I know it needs a lot more polish before I can perform it for a larger audience…” she trailed off then finally looked up “Well?”

Xena continued to prod the fire with her now charred stick “I like it…I mean, you’re right about the polish, but I like what you’ve written and what you’re trying to tell your audience…” she too trailed off and watched quietly as Gabrielle re-rolled the scroll and stowed it within one of their saddle bags, then moved around the fire to lie on their bedding roll.

“I’m glad you do. I was worried that I was getting a bit rusty…I mean it’s been what? Thirty years since I last wrote…at least technically” she scrunched her nose up as she grinned, instantly seeing a similar smile reflected back at her.

“Well, you wouldn’t know it” replied Xena loyally as she banked up the fire for the night, before coming to lie next the blond. There was a long pause in the darkness before Xena spoke once more, a low burr in the bard’s ear.

“Is that story really told around Potedeia?”

“Not yet it isn’t” replied the blond, rolling her head so as to face the dark features of her partner “do you think it will be?”

“Yes” came the unhesitant reply “Where did you get the idea from?”

“Us.”

“Us?”

“Yes, us. Is that so hard to believe?”

“Well, no” the warrior admitted “but I’ve never stabbed myself because I found your bloody veil and thought you to have been killed by a lion…and neither have you for that matter, depending on which part you’ve got us both pegged in!

“I never said it was us exactly, just that we gave me the idea. I mean neither of us would, or have for that matter, ever leave the other, even in death.”

“Damn” came the surprising response.

“Excuse me?” snapped Gabrielle, her green eyes visibly flashing, even in the darkness.

“No, not that” came the immediate response “I mean ‘Damn’, you’ve managed to write about me yet again, albeit in a rather more subtle way than usual.”

The bard relaxed, then chuckled “Well, you are my biggest Muse” she said, leaning up to kiss her “You’ll just have to deal with it love.”

“I guess I can do that” replied Xena, turning to return the kiss “Even in death I will never leave you Gabrielle” she proclaimed dramatically before both erupted into giggles.

“Xena” was the blonde’s exasperated, yet evidently amused admonishment “Goodnight.”

“Night Gab” Xena replied as they moved nearer to each other and pulled the blankets up over them both.

“Even in death…really” came the quiet disbelieving mutter form the darkness followed by further chuckles.

“Yes even in death, that’s just how loyal and dogged I am. Go to sleep Xena.”

  


* * *

1\. _Metamorphoses_ Ovid trans. Mary Innes.


End file.
